i thought a lead boolit was supposed to stay together...

[BK7saum]

This is what I recovered from a doe I shot yesterday.

http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee467/BLK7mm/2014-11-02182345.jpg

I really cant complain too much about performance. Shot was broadside and I hit her low and forward in the chest cavity. Boolit was a 265 ranch dog in a sabot fired from an encore muzzleloader. Not sure what the velocity is.

Boolit broke shoulder joint going in, hitribs on both side and broke offside shoulder joint. Alloy was 50/50 COWW/PB. These boolit when fired into a dirt berm mushroom well.

[jmort]

I would add 1% tin.

[BK7saum]

Actually jmortimer, there is 1% tin in there. Didn't mention it when describing the main alloy components.

I think that the boolit encountered two many sharp corners that caused it to shear. The semicircle piece is flatten indicating that the boolit mushroomed properly. And the larger piece is the side of the boolit with the tumble lube grooves compressed, also showing expansion.

Brad

[BK7saum]

I'm not able to see pics I posted. Are they coming through for y'all?

Brad

[GhostHawk]

IMO it just hit too much hard stuff. But I bet that doe didn't go far.
Seems to me that the boolit did its job. It expanded, killed the deer, if it had broken and dispersed on the first shoulder you'd of had a deer on 3 legs trying to get away. Breaking the first shoulder, going through the ribs, tearing up the chest cavity, then fracturing on the second shoulder is in my opinion very good performance.

In the end shot placement trumps everything.

[RP]

Even if you cast pure lead it will not stay together it really kind of flows like its melted when it hits a bone really kind of strange how it reacts. But if you feel better jackets bullets do not stay together that great sometimes.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

BK7, Just to many unknowns such as velocity to really give much of a comment.

However, from my limited experience and seeing the size of the wound channel in my first cast boolit critter (355gr at 2300fps), I wonder if the velocity isn't excessive.

Again an unknown, but providing you are using a cast bullet with a large meplat, sometimes know as having a Wide Flat Nose (WFN) high velocity is not needed or even desirable.

The WFN will get er done.

My cast 45/70 boolit is 465gr nominal weight and this past week it was again used at 1650fps to take another deer. That, along with the two elk it has accounted for show it to be very effective.

The alloy is 50/50 WW/lead, water quenched as they fall from the mold.

The one 465gr bullet I surprisingly found after a quartering shot on a large cow elk, did loose some weight, but only after doing a lot of hard work through large bone and other internals and ended up at 327.9gr.

Yes, it did loose some weight, but as said it had some really hard going in the process.

However, it really did the job it was called on to do.

The deer taken this past week, showed again the effectiveness of the WFN and I'd consider myself will armed to use this boolit and load against any critter in North America and most of the rest of the world as well.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[btroj]

Cut is back to 75/25 lead/ww.
I do need to ask this though, at what point in the death of the deer did your bullet fail?

[BK7saum]

Oh, I never said that it failed. In fact it did a heck of a job. I just half expected to fund a mangled chunk not several smaller chunks.

I figure the muzzle velocity is 1800 or so based on drop figures.

Brad

[btroj]

Heck, try some from pure lead and see what they do. I would personally prefer a longer, heavier bullet but that is just me.

In my inline I used a pure lead Lyman 457122 HP. It expanded well but held together well enough that none of the 4 or 5 deer it killed failed to have an exit wound. Most left a blood trail that looked like someone had a leaky bucket of paint.

A 310 Lee for 44 mag from pure lead would be awesome too.

[Hamish]

It broke *both* shoulder joints. I seriously doubt that the average cup and core bullet would have fared much better,,,,,

[BK7saum]

I have a MP heavy 44 mold that I will try next year.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Bone is a mean tough material. Especially growing live bone. Very elastic with excellent adhesive properties within the structure. My informal testing with lead makes me look at green oak limbs to try to ressemble leg bones and shoulder joints. Dried out bones just do not act like living bone on impact. Fresh shoulders still attached would be excellent test media but who wants to use that nice fresh killed deer for target practice.
I am amazed our cast boollits perform as well as they do when smaking into heavy bone joints covered with tissues that tend to be acting like "elastic bone" in thier own selves. I shudder thinking of adding more tin but must also live with the reality that sometimes my skimpy 1% is not enough and 3% would be better in trying to make the "lead flow" through the struck object stay together much better. The old elephant hunters used 20-1 ( 5%) tin. They bashed through very heavy scull bones and had good results.
So I would write in the end... Well done. Maybe jump up to 3% tin if you desire a better shoulder buster using 50-50. Me I would want that bullet to exit. I like lots of leakage as it sure is easy to follow anywhere. And at 63 I am not looking for more oppertunities to follow any whitetails up and down hills or through too many blackberry thickets.
And again... Well done ! Another corn cruncher that will not ever again eat up our corn bread or taco shells long before we can.
Mike in ILL

[Digital Dan]

Two leg bones, 5 ribs, pure lead with a MV of 1600 fps. Paper patched .44 Mag, 300 grains, slightly over 290 recovered. Draw your own conclusions.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/muddler/Guns/PaperPatchDeer009_zps3a52d58c.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/muddler/media/Guns/PaperPatchDeer009_zps3a52d58c.jpg.html)

[truckjohn]

If you want more penetration and less expansion - slow down the velocity....

[white eagle]

broken or not you ended game
well done

[44man]

Failure is finding a boolit in an animal no matter the expansion or bone hit.
Bullet makers have worked for years to get expansion and penetration both. I have never found any bone in deer to ruin or stop a good cast. I don't know about huge animals.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

And 44man, with "J" bullets they have, after many years done a pretty good job of gett'in er done.

However, with cast bullets, it will always and forever be a matter of velocity at impact and alloy strength.

"expanding" cast bullets work well in a relatively narrow widow as far as expansion is concerned, due to the lack of the controlling influence of a jacket.

Why not just use the highly effective Wide Flat Nose (WFN) cast bullet design in a reasonable alloy/caliber and be done with it.

In any reasonable cast bullet caliber it will simply get er done and do so with little to no expansion.

Yes, some folk get "classic" expansion, some times, with cast bullets, but it still comes back to alloy strength and velocity at impact.

The WFN just gets it done, expansion or no.

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[44man]

I want two holes even if a boolit has some expansion. I started revolver hunting with the 240 XTP from my SBH and shot three before I gave them up. I recovered all three against the rib cages even with behind the shoulder shots, nice mushrooms, however I seen them fall at over 60 yards. I have a habit of back tracking all deer I shoot and I found no blood on the ground. I just happened to be where I could watch them run so if I was in my normal thick country, there might be a problem. Since accuracy was with 24 gr of 296, the 240 was too fast for it's construction.
Works the same with cast, need alloy work if a boolit is shot too fast. There is no way I would use a light, fast, soft HP.
I bought some LBT, WLN 320 gr boolits and since velocity came down and weight went up, results improved dramatically, now a blind man can follow a trail. I just make mine hard now by water dropping for the .44. Deer seldom make 30 yards. I do see a difference with deer shot at 100 or more, they will go farther so if ALL deer were shot that far, I would soften. Yet I still find a blood trail and there is nothing as important as blood on the ground.

[siamese4570]

You gotta remember that the plains were cleared of buffalo using lead boolits traveling 1200-1300 fps. I'd slow it down a little. I don't have the experience of some here but I killed my first cast boolit deer last year using the 330 gr gould hp in my 45-70. It was lumbering along at 1300 fps. Got thru penetration and the deer didn't notice how slow the boolit was traveling.
siamese4570

[newton]

I had the same thing happen to me BK7. I shot a doe lengthwise with a Lee boolit I paper patched and ran in my CVA. It went in the front shoulder and found the bulk of it just about to enter the opposite side ham. It retained quite a bit of weight, but did shear some from the front shoulder bone. I found the sheared off part just behind the shoulder which indicated that the bone is what sheared it off.

I too like blood trails, but if they drop they drop. I know that the boolit would have gone through if it had not ran through the shoulder bone lengthwise, but I am thankful it did not because it would have ruined meat on that ham.

I just need to work on my shot placement now and not get so stinking excited when I see a deer.